Eric Holder, U.S. attorney general, left, speaks during a news conference on Citigroup Inc. with Michael Stephens, acting inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), center, and John Walsh, U.S. attorney for the district of Colorado, at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, July 14, 2014.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that he will soon release new guidelines to state and local law enforcement officials designed to limit racial profiling in America. In a speech delivered at Atlanta's famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. once preached, Holder said the new guidelines would be made public "in the coming days" Reuters reported.

"The new guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards of fair and effective policing," Holder said in a prepared speech given one week after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to charge white police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown.

Keep up with the best of Bloomberg Politics.

Get our newsletter daily.

Business

Your guide to the most important business stories of the day, every day.

You will now receive the Business newsletter

Markets

The most important market news of the day. So you can sleep an extra five minutes.

You will now receive the Markets newsletter

Technology

Insights into what you'll be paying for, downloading and plugging in tomorrow and 10 years from now.

You will now receive the Technology newsletter

Pursuits

What to eat, drink, wear and drive – in real life and your dreams.

You will now receive the Pursuits newsletter

Game Plan

The school, work and life hacks you need to get ahead.

You will now receive the Game Plan newsletter

"Broadly speaking, without mutual understanding between citizens—whose rights must be respected—and law enforcement officers—who make tremendous and often-unheralded personal sacrifices every day to preserve public safety—there can be no meaningful progress," Holder said. "Our police officers cannot be seen as an occupying force disconnected from the communities they serve. Bonds that have been broken must be restored. Bonds that never existed must now be created."

Since the grand jury decision, protests have been held in cities across the country. Holder called Brown's death a "tragedy," and said that the justice system as a whole needed to "strengthened and made more fair."

"These are the moments that remind us of the values that bind us together as a nation. These are the times—of great challenge and great consequence—that point the way forward in our ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union," Holder said. "And these are the lights that will help us beat back the encroaching darkness—and the stars that will guide us, together, out of this storm."